Urban Hierarchy of Innovation Capability and Inter-city Linkages of Knowledge in Post-reform China

The 2000s has witnessed increasing interests in cities′role of innovation in the era of knowledge-based economy.Compared with substantial empirical analysis on the world city hierarchy of innovation,this paper attempts to examine the national urban hierarchy of innovation capability in China,in terms of ranking systems,spatial pattern and inter-city linkages of knowledge during the post-reform period since the late 1970s.Based on quantitative analysis such as principal component factor analysis and clustering analysis,this paper identifies the five-tier hierarchy of in-novation,which is headed by Beijing and Shanghai,followed by the capital cities of each province and regional centre cities.The development of China′s urban hierarchy of innovation capability has been driven by such factors as the scale of innovation,scientific scale,innovation potential and innovation environment.The paper further investigates the inter-city linkages of knowledge measured by the number of co-authored papers among the cities.Beijing is positioned in the central position of the knowledge diffusion and knowledge cooperation innovation.More knowledge diffusion among high level cities has occurred than that among the low level cities as well as between the low level cities and high level cities,and provincial capital cities and the regional central cities.

Relationship Between Producer Services Developing Level and Urban Hierarchy——A Case Study of Zhujiang River Delta

As the Central Place Theory indicates, the centricity of a central city can influence the extension of its ser- vice. Since the service industry in the theory is mostly consumer services, it is worth studying the relationship between the producer services and the centricity of the city in the service society with producer services becoming a more im- portant part of the service industry. The paper takes the case of the Zhujiang (Pearl) River Delta (PRD), a developed region in China, to study the relationship between the developing level of producer services and the urban hierarchy. Based on the analysis about the spatial difference of the producer services in the nine cities of the PRD, and the divi- sion of the nine cities according to some economic indices, it is shown that there is a correlation between the develop- ing level of producer services and the urban hierarchy. Furthermore, two deductions about the future status of the pro- ducer services in the city and the location of the producer services in a large region can be made from this correlation between the developing level of producer services and the urban hierarchy.

Approach to Delimiting Metropolitan Regions' Boundary and Grading Urban Hierarchy Within a Metropolitan Region——A Case Study of Shanghai Metropolitan Region

In metropolitan regions, the change in the strength of "flows" between a core city and surrounding cities re-flects the range of the core city's influence, while the gravity between core city and other cities reflects the strength of potential relation between them. This article firstly attempts to delimit the boundary of metropolitan regions with the two dimensions measure combining "flows" and gravitation. The former is measured through the flow of people be-tween the core city and surrounding cities, and the latter is measured through both population and gross domestic products (GDP) of the core city and surrounding cities. The hierarchy of the cities within a metropolitan region is classified in order to emphasize the roles of the cities belonging to the metropolitan regions, different from the general way through population scale and administrative level, and is typical in China. This paper uses the Shanghai metropolitan region as a research case, determining boundary of this metropolitan region clearly and classifying hierarchy of the cities within the region. The final results are significantly different to previous work, even overthrowing the traditional system of urban hierarchy partly. It is helpful to highlight the function of cities in organizing the regional economy, the level structure of metropolitan regions, and each city's relative importance in a metropolitan region, which can be taken as scientific basis for planning integrated regions or urban systems.

An Empirical Study on Chinese City Network Pattern Based on Producer Services

Globalization and informatization have accelerated city networking process over the world, which makes research on city network a hot topic in the fields of urban geography and economic geography. With Chinese economic structure adjustment and city economic growth, producer services have begun to play an increasingly important role in city-region networking. This paper employs the methodology of world city network to analyze and explain the spatial development characteristics of China's urban network system based on the data of nationwide producer services enterprise network. The research result indicated that the distribution of producer services network has a positive effect on the development of Chinese city networks. City network connectivity is closely related to the significance of city in producer services development, and the former will gradually decline with the drop of the latter. Accordingly, the 64 cities can be divided into the national central cities, regional central cities, sub-regional central cities and local central cities in accordance with their position and role in the nationwide producer services network. It is concluded that high-grade cities with quality producer services dominate the pattern of Chinese city networks and there emerges three spatial agglomerations of producer services enterprises in Changjiang (Yangtze) River Delta, Zhujiang (Pearl) River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Economical Region. Moreover, the distribution of different producer services industry varies from city to city, which also affects the characteristics of network development.

Household Registration Reform,Labor Mobility and Optimization of the Urban Hierarchy

A rational hierarchy of rank-size distribution is indispensable for optimizing the urban hierarchy. On the basis of the number of permanent urban residents, using rank-size rule testing and core density estimation within the framework of spatial economics, we set up a labor force location choice model and conducted quantitative simulations. Our fmdings show that the structure of China＇s urban hierarchy differs from the pyramid structure of Zipf＇s Law, and the household registration system impedes the free movement of labor and makes the size distribution of cities deviate from Pareto optimality. Household registration （hukou） reform will be conducive to the optimization of the urban hierarchy. Optimizing the urban hierarchy should become a consistent objective in today＇s development of new-type urbanization, city clusters and metropolitan areas.

Reshaping the urban hierarchy:patterns of information diffusion on social media

The spatial diffusion of information is a process governed by the flow of interpersonal communication.The emergence of the Internet and especially social media platforms has reshaped this process and previous research has studied how online social networks contribute to the diffusion of information.Understanding such processes can help devise methods to maximize or control the reach of information or even identify upcoming events and social movements.Yet activities in cyberspace are still confined to physical locations and this geographic connection tends to be overlooked.In this research,we focus on geographic regions instead of individuals and study how the underlying hierarchical structure of regions relates to their response to the information.We examined the top 30 populated cities and metropolitan areas in the U.S.and retrieved Twitter data related to two selected topics from these regions,the 2015 Nepal Earthquake and the#JesuisCharlie hashtag in response to the Paris attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices.We analyzed the similarity among regions of their response using multiple statistical methods and three urban classifications.Our results indicate that the diffusion of information is impacted by the hierarchy of urban regions and that the Twitter responses act more similar when the populated regions are positioned at the same level in the urban hierarchy.

Process and cause of urban-rural development transformation in the Bohai Rim Region, China

China＇s reform and opening-up policy has brought the country a great development opportunity. The high-speed growth of the economy not only led China to a period of industrialization, urbanization, informatization and agricultural modernization, but also exacerbated the situation of the urban–rural dual structure. Based on the review of current studies, we first used the analytic hierarchy process（AHP） method to evaluate the urban–rural development and transformation level by population transformation index, land transformation index, industrial transformation index and social transformation index between 1996 and 2012 around the Bohai Rim Region. Then, based on the results of each index, we used the exploratory spatial data analysis（ESDA） method to investigate the spatial autocorrelation of the change in the urban–rural development transformation index during the 16-year period using Global Moran＇s I index and Local Moran＇s I index. Finally, we investigated the mechanism of change of the urban–rural development transformation index at county level, summarizing five main factors：（1） the radiation from the surrounding big cities,（2） the acceleration of the urbanization process,（3） the upgrading of the industrial structure,（4） the publishing and implementation of a macro development strategy and regional policy, and（5） natural factors such as topology.